More Thinking about Contest Philanthropy: Market-Based Approaches - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly

More Thinking about Contest Philanthropy: Market-Based Approaches - NPQ - Nonprofit Quarterly

In the wake of the Council on Foundation’s modification of its original plan to host a “pitch competition” at its annual meeting this year, two people associated with the Case Foundation wrote a blog post on the foundation’s website to defend the notion of nonprofits “playing by market-based approaches” or rules—as though they don’t all the time because of the structure of the U.S. economy. Trying to make their point that the criticism of the COF competition was a nonprofit reaction against the wisdom of “markets…[that] have this uncanny way of being candid, sending demand signals that companies need to pay attention and adapt to in order to thrive, if not survive,” the two authors stretched some points that were made in the criticism of the COF program.